Tuesday, 20 April 2010

Orange Shortlist

I'm getting a little fed up with the ubiquitous Wolf Hall now. To my mind, it has three faults, and three faults is one too many for it to be great book. (For those of you interested, the three faults are: present tense; too much use of the male singular pronoun, causing confusion in places; and the Henry-Anne story has been done to death, even if this is from a new point of view. And it is the Henry-Anne story, equally as much as it's Cromwell's.) The Booker's enough for any author, surely - let's give someone else a chance.

I'm interested in the Rosie Alison, possibly because it's the right era, although I do realise, looking at the cover, that I've passed over it in bookshops. Again I am forced to consider the importance of a decent jacket.

I'll wait for The Lacuna to come out in paperback, as it's just too big to carry around on a daily basis - shades of The Children's Book in that problem.

It's interesting, as judge Daisy Goodwin comments, that even the long list was filled with "grim" subject matter. Art reacting to The Recession, perhaps? Or a peculiarly female affliction, a post-feminist depression?

2 comments:

I have to admit I struggled through Wolf Hall for the exact reasons you mentioned. It was a relief to finish, and I had a sense of accomplishment but, honestly, I'm not sure it would have mattered if I hadn't finished it.

I agree. There was no great momentum pulling me through the book - I finished it beacuse i ahd started it, not because I was desperate to find out how it ended, or because I particularly cared about anyone in it. The fact that there is a sequel on the way actually fills me with a tiny drop of dread. It's just not original enough to be worth all this fuss.

Hello

As a child, I lived inside books. Then I grew up, and little changed but the books themselves. They spill off the shelves in my cottage, make cliffs at the side of the stairs and build towers by my bed. This is their story.